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Mount Kinabalu appears through the clouds over Kota Kinabalu, capital
of the east Malaysian state of Sabah on Borneo island, in this March 8,
2002 aerial photograph. (Bazuki Muhammad/Courtesy Reuters)

Picking up a copy of Mark Clifford’s new book The Greening of Asia: The Business Case for Solving Asia’s Environmental Emergency (Columbia University Press, forthcoming March 2015) is a good way to start the New Year. Clifford, the executive director of the Hong Kong–based Asia Business Council, offers an in-depth look at how entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial companies in Asia are making important contributions to energy, land, and water conservation and efficiency through technological and policy innovation. Coming on the heels of the recent U.S. and Chinese pledges to do more to address climate change, the book adds to the sense that there is real potential to change the world’s environmental future for the better. Read more »

The BYD E6 electric car was on display at the New Energy Auto Expo in Nanjing, Jiangsu province on March 22, 2014. (Stringer/Courtesy Reuters)

Everyone loves China’s five-year plans. They tell you everything you need to know about the future direction of the Chinese economy: intentions and priorities, along with timetables and targets. The only thing missing are the results. After five years, though, who keeps track of what was promised and what was delivered? Well, the Chinese government for one. And as Beijing takes stock of its efforts to become a world leader in the production and deployment of electric and hybrid electric cars during the Twelfth Five-Year Plan (2011-2015), the picture isn’t pretty. Now Beijing is attempting a mid-plan course correction. Will it work? Read more »

Last week I participated in the Fortune Brainstorm GREEN conference, a two-and-a-half day meeting in California that brought together money people, inventors, CEOs, chief sustainability officers, journalists, and policy analysts to talk about what is going on in the world of clean and green tech. The meeting struck me as unusual for a couple of reasons.

First, there was a lot of positive energy—no pun intended—engendered primarily by the inventor types and CEOs (not surprising, I suppose, since they are the ones actually involved in creating things), as well as the sustainability officers who are always thinking about how to make their companies do more with less. Read more »

With the glaring exception of Japan, Asian economies are recovering earlier and stronger from the crisis than nearly all others. And China has now cemented its place alongside the United States and Europe as a growth engine.

First, both countries face growing economic challenges and vulnerabilities. And for its part, it is decidedly in the U.S. interest for China to get ahead of these challenges. As Paulson puts it, “China’s success at sustaining growth, fighting inflation, and transitioning from an economic model too dependent on exports and fixed asset investment is closely connected to our own success.”

Second, “the U.S. and China need to take steps—mostly individually, sometimes together—that will have the mutually beneficial effect of supporting and sustaining economic growth.”

That’s a striking formulation because it’s not focused on “cooperation” for its own sake. Rather, as Paulson argues, the U.S. and China “don’t always need to act jointly.” They can take separate and self-interested steps that, in the bargain, put their two economies onto a more complementary footing.

A resident cycles past the Wumen Gate of the Forbidden City in Beijing. Reuters/Jason Lee.

As Vice President Biden meets with Xi Jinping and other Chinese leaders this week, his number one economic talking point is almost certain to be about “rebalancing.” Nearly all of Washington’s principal economic concerns, from currency valuation to Chinese industrial policy, touch this central issue. But, quite frankly, rebalancing is not just an American goal. It is, too, a Chinese objective because Beijing’s existing growth model—predicated on the two pillars of exports and capital-intensive investment—is delivering diminishing returns, and China’s savvy leaders know it.

First, a little truth in advertising: I’m the head of the Asia practice group at Eurasia Group, so I helped write the report. But our team’s report is well worth reading because it provides a very comprehensive overview of the forces and dynamics shaping the future of China’s political economy.

Jill Kosch O’Donnell is a former Junior Associate of The Asia Foundation and is a writer in Washington, DC.

In an interview with the Korea Herald earlier this year, Hur Dong-Soo, CEO of Korea’s GS Caltex, called his company’s investments in heavy-oil upgrading facilities a “green growth business.” As the phrase “green growth” becomes ever more common—now used in reference to everything from solar panel exports to a stimulus-backed cure-all for ailing national economies—such claims beg the question, what does green growth really mean? Is it a strategy for cashing in on the growing global demand for clean energy products, like wind turbines and smart grid components? Is it the goal to derive more power from renewable sources? Or, is it investing in technology to meet the demand for cleaner-burning petroleum products, as GS Caltex is doing? Read more »

Getting the facts straight never hurts, and every once in a while it really matters. The current brouhaha over China’s decision to cut its exports of rare earths falls in the latter category. So here is my best effort to get at the facts.Read more »

Two good new articles–Evan Osnos in the New Yorker and Shai Oster in Wall Street Journal– address the question of China’s innovative capabilities in green technologies. Both come out at about the same point, one that I am highly sympathetic to (and, shameless plug, make in my forthcoming book). Essentially, China is excelling at bringing the price down of a number of important technologies used for solar, coal, and wind, but breakthrough, cutting-edge innovations are rare. Read more »

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Asia Unbound examines political, economic, and social developments in Asia and the region’s growing importance in global affairs. Named one of the top fifty blogs following Asian business by Bschool.com.